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Updated, 14:54
THE GOVERNMENT has released details of the travel itineraries of ministers who are leaving Ireland for St Patrick’s Day.
13 senior ministers, six junior ministers, and the Attorney General are all due to travel abroad as part of the ‘Promote Ireland’ programme.
The government says ministerial-led trade missions are a key part of its jobs strategy for 2013.
Enda Kenny will make his traditional trip to Washington D.C. to meet with the US president Barack Obama and vice president Joe Biden, and will also travel to New York to meet city mayor Michael Bloomberg and visit the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore will also travel to Washington, but later depart for Atlanta and New Orleans.
Pat Rabbitte, Joan Burton and Phil Hogan are also travelling to the United States – to Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston respectively – while Jimmy Deenihan heads for Canada.
Frances Fitzgerald will travel to India, while Ruairí Quinn heads to China and Brendan Howlin take a tour of Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Leo Varadkar will travel to Japan and South Korea.
Closer to home, Richard Bruton will visit Germany, while James Reilly will travel to London and Birmingham. Alan Shatter will visit the Irish troops on peacekeeping duty in the Lebanon, as well as visiting both Israel and Palestine.
Agriculture minister Simon Coveney and finance minister Michael Noonan are the only ministers not to be leading trade missions.
Among the junior ministers, chief whip Paul Kehoe is bound for Australia and New Zealand while planning minister Jan O’Sullivan will visit Saudi Arabia.
John Perry will visit Glasgow and Edinburgh, while Brian Hayes will travel to Belgium and Luxembourg. Joe Costello, whose brief includes trade, will visit South Africa.
Michael Ring, the junior minister responsible for sport, will be in Italy for the conclusion of Ireland’s Six Nations campaign.
The attorney general, Máire Whelan, will travel to France.
All the 8th amendment does is harm women’s health. Replace it with legislation that treats pregnant women and girls as autonomous humans, not Tupperware containers. The rally for lies this Saturday will be interesting.
@DaisyChainsaw: I find these, while no doubt well meaning, a tad disturbing in that the more options and recommendations that are made, the more they’ll cherry pick from and ignore but still be able to quite legitimately say they followed the advice of the Citizens’ Assembly.
That all makes sense. Hopefull the Oireachtas implements the recommendations of the report.
@Daithí Ó Coinnigh: Kenny announced when the Assembly delivered not what was wanted (by the politicians in government) that there was another committee to be set up and ‘consider’ the Assmbly’s output – i.e. Water it down or even better – drag it into a dark alley, ignore it and bull ahead regardless.
Let women determine their own treatment options – NOT politicians!!!
If you’re going to explain the word consensus, don’t do so incorrectly. Consensus is where you arrive at something acceptable to all or the vast majority. Thus, these recommendations are acceptable to the vast majority of the assembly.
Are we going to need new jumpers with REPLACE on them instead?
@Fiachrá Ó Dubhthaigh: repealing and then creating legislation for this is the best way.
Ireland’s obsession with referendums for everything really needs to stop, the only way this can stop is us stopping adding everything to the constitution even when it doesn’t need to be in it.
Repeal! It’s their choice. We are all human and I have no right to tell another human how to live.
@Nicholas J Campbell: we are all human and we ALL have a RIGHT to live.
Just bring it in, make it available for anyone who plans on having one & get it over with.
Nicholas we are all human and we all have a RIGHT to live
There still wasting taxpayer money !
Women are tax payers too and their health deserve to be properly looked after
Nicholasjcampbell we are all human and we ALL have a right to live
The first thing I have to say is “When did 25% become a consensus”. The second thing is ” I believe that the Citizens Assembly is one of the most sexist groups I’ve ever come across. Have men and boys not got an equal right to control over their reproduction . Or any ! This assembly is so biased that it didn’t even mention condoms for boys and men.
This article is either poorly written, or the Citizen’s Assembly was all over the shop.
“These recommendations were arrived at via a consensus (ie a majority were in agreement) of the members’ responses.”
and then
“Between 15 and 20 members calling for a recommendation (roughly 25%) was taken to be consensus.”
If the latter is what they viewed as a consensus, then the must have only a cursory relationship with a dictionary.
“usually in singular: A general agreement.”
have your say